Immigration Troubles Are Nothing New, Laments Elrington

While Elrington is often up to speed on events, he says he has not been keeping up with developments in the ongoing senate inquiry. Last Wednesday, while under oath, former Director of Immigration Ruth Meighan conceded that there was a move by the Barrow administration to naturalize hundreds of immigrants ahead of the 2012 General Elections. Foreign Minister Elrington was out of the country at the time of the admission and hasn’t really bothered to find out what’s been taking place with the inquiry since it doesn’t involve him. He acknowledges, however, that those allegations are nothing new, despite Meighan’s disclosure.

Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington

Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs

“I can tell you for a fact that those allegations that one hears with respect to aliens being naturalized and permitted to vote are very old allegations. As a matter of fact, when I got involved in politics in 1993 I was called frantically by a young lady who told me that the People’s United Party were in fact registering the people in the Banana Belt to vote and she was convinced that it was in fact being done illegally. So that is a complaint that comes up often. How valid it is I don’t know and I think that it has to be looked into. These are old allegations. I think they pop up at every election. At every election we have these allegations.”

Isani Cayetano

“But in this case sir, the person with arguably the second highest office in that department, you have the Minister of Immigration and then you have the Director of Immigration, she essentially admitted that there was something questionable in terms of how these individuals became Belizean citizens, despite the fact that they did not meet the requirements to have become Belizeans. Were you aware of any of this at the time, leading up to the 2012 elections, either in talking with your colleagues or what have you, in the party and in government?”

Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington

“Not really. I tend to be very much of a loner. I mean, I get bogged down in Pickstock and I concern myself almost exclusively with Pickstock and certainly in that constituency there would be no suggestion of that ever. I can’t think of any time when there has been an allegation of that in the Pickstock area. It’s not something that concerns me directly.”

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